AstraSync Officially Released – ActiveSync For BlackBerry

Jeorge let me know that AstraSync that we mentioned before has finally been released. AstraSync is essentially a Microsoft ActiveSync client for BlackBerry.

Features include:

• Synchronizes email, calendar and contacts over-the-air
• Supports Exchange ActiveSync
• Supports Exchange DirectPush
• Supports secure https connection
• Works with Microsoft Exchange 2007 & MailSite Fusion
• Over-the-air download
• Synchronizes over Wi-Fi or the cellular network
• Requires a simple one-time configuration

It has a 7 day free trial after which it is a reasonable $49 per year. You can check out more information at www.astrasync.com.

So far the only user report I have seen is in a comment by IceMage on our original post. His thoughts:

It seems that while AstraSync works FLAWLESSLY with your blackberry it has some very major drawbacks. 

• First of all, it runs on the J2ME interface, which implies some slowdown, and loss of battery life. 
• Second of all, it does not sync with your messages box, so you only get notifications from the program.  The icon doesn’t change when you have items waiting in your mailbox, and the red light does NOT flash when you have new messages that are unread.
• The major advantages is that it requires no BES server, read items appear read on your device, as well as on your mailbox (Outlook for example will show messages as read when you read them on your device.)  It syncs calendar and contact items flawlessly, even though it does lack some fields, this isn’t a big deal since you don’t need most of them on your mobile device.
• It does not sync tasks or notes, but I can’t think of any ActiveSync devices (that aren’t windows mobile based) that do.
  Overall, very good, the major drawback is your inbox which doesn’t support HTML email or attachments.

Thanks IceMage!